The foundation of any good business is all in the knowledge, the planning and the understanding – figure out the needs and wishes of your customer and you’re more than half way to long-term success.

You’re probably reading this because you are working in a marketing department as a marketing executive, PR manager, category manager or even a marketing manager. You may even be a ‘sales’ and marketing manager.
If you do a search on the web for the subject ‘marketing’ it will come up with 239,000,000 results world wide and 3,500,000 for Australia. With that many people claiming to know something about marketing, how hard can it be?
So what is marketing? The answer typically includes advertising, brand management, sales, service, pricing, email marketing, the four P’s etc. These are all correct, but not the complete picture. They are simply tactics. Most people associate these tactics with marketing as they are the fun things to do. It is fun to make advertising, do promotions, and arrange PR briefings. They are what makes the job fun and what you and your company get recognized for. These activities are crucial to the function, but are useless without a really strong market understanding and customer knowledge.
The key to understanding marketing is about good analysis and planning. Why? Nothing stays the same, consumers are evolving and becoming increasingly wiser to the ways companies market their products and services. Because technology is playing such an integral part in our lives these days, not only is the race on between the traditional big brand manufacturers to be first to market but they are increasingly feeling the pressure from the smaller brands that are leaner, hungrier and extremely quick to introduce new products or brands. It is more competitive nowadays than it has ever been.
What type of analysis are we talking about? Analysis about customers. For example, having an understanding of customers means having an understanding about how customers behave, their motivations, their perceptions and preferences.
We’ve all noticed companies who are using advertising and promotional material that has been created by its global headquarters. Some do it better than others. The less successful are guilty of making the look and feel of the communication distant and aloof and therefore are misunderstood or worse, ignored by the target market. What often happens is that the company ends up wasting a lot of money broadcasting messages that bear little relevance to the people it wants to impress. This can be extremely detrimental to the brand and create an enormous amount of negativity. The damage done can take months and a lot of money to repair.
Without the right knowledge, the tactics of marketing have no foundation. You will hope that your tactics are working but you will have no idea if anyone is listening.
Secondly, marketing is about understanding your competition – not just knowing who they are. It means thinking about their competitive reactions, pre-empting what they’ll do when you launch a tactical campaign. What their objectives and capabilities are. Understanding your competition will help you predict what they will be doing in the future.
Thirdly, marketing is also about understanding your own company’s capabilities and company culture. Are you truly a marketing oriented company? Are you developing marketing strategies that fit the needs of your customers or just selling the product and then thinking about doing some sort of marketing tactic because you have to? Is marketing seen as an investment in the brand, or purely a cost for short-term gain? Is the training and skill set of the marketers alive and well? Are you selling but not really marketing? These are important questions you should be asking yourself if you want to be successful in the long-term.
Good marketing stems from the thorough analysis and understanding of customers, competitors, and the company. The traditional tactics can then be used to confidently reach the people you want via the most effective channel – be it TV advertising, PR, point of sale or whatever is appropriate.
So before you start your next marketing activity, ask yourself if you know as much as possible about who it is you are actually going after.

That way you will be on the way to being a truly effective marketer.

Paul Reeves is the Managing Director of Octane Marketing and uses his many years of experience by providing advice to companies who require assistance with the analysis, development and implementation of marketing and business plans. Contact Paul at [email protected]